


Lass Ride: Crossroads – The Messages

by combatfaerie



Series: Lass Ride [3]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23125996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/combatfaerie/pseuds/combatfaerie
Summary: A follow-up to LASS RIDE and LASS RIDE: CROSSROADS. The Shield and the Four Horsewomen leave messages for Becky.Note: This won't make much sense if you haven't read LASS RIDE: CROSSROADS first, but LASS RIDE: CROSSROADS can be read without reading this. This is just a bonus scene.
Series: Lass Ride [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566157
Kudos: 7





	1. Renee

Going first was supposed to make things easier. Back in school, teachers used to say that if you volunteered to do your presentation first, you not only got things out of the way, but you also couldn't be compared to anyone else—not to mention you'd likely get unofficial mercy points since your volunteering meant the teacher didn't have to force someone else to go. As Renee held Dean's back-up phone in her hand, though, she was second-guessing her decision to go first.

Her reasoning had been sound enough: Since she was the newest addition to the group—well, it was a toss-up between her and Seth, technically—she didn't have the family-like bond with Becky that the others did. But she was still a friend, and before that she was a fan. The others felt hurt and upset and betrayed, and justifiably so, but Renee just felt sad. She knew first-hand that being in the WWE with no allies—or worse, with a target on your back—was an incredibly isolating, claustrophobic feeling. _I hope the girls aren't holding it against her,_ she thought as her finger hovered above the call button. _I hope she has some friends, or at least people to talk to._

"Two minutes," Renee told herself as she took a deep breath and pressed the button, almost jumping out of her skin when the phone started to ring. _What do I do if she picks up?_ It wasn't likely, but with her luck, Becky might just answer and then she'd be a stammering mess. The call rang through, though, and after the spiel about being unavailable, there was a familiar beep. "Hey. Hey, Becky. It's Renee. I guess I should warn you to prepare for a flood of messages. I offered to go first, since I thought I'd be more neutral, but . . . it's still hard."

Renee let out a long breath before shaking her head. If they only had two minutes each, give or take, she didn't have time to waste on pondering or pauses. "I . . . I just wanted to say that . . . I understand. You did what you thought was best. The others—they're hurt and confused and I understand that too, but they're not thinking clearly about what you did and why. I've got a bit of distance, so I can see it better than they can. If you ever need to talk, just let Dean know. I'm happy to chat about what WWE was like when you were gone or. . . ." Feeling tears starting to press at her eyes, Renee coughed. "I hope you're happy. I hope the women's locker room is fucking elated, because they should be. If you'd come back while I was still there, I would have been over the moon. I hope you've been making friends again and that you're okay. Please don't worry about us—you've done more than enough. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I know Dean talked to you about proposing to me." A sharp, sudden sob took Renee's breath then, and she knew she wouldn't be able to blink back the tears much longer. "Come to the wedding? I have no idea when it'll be, but we'd love to have you there. It won't feel right without you."

Then she forced herself to hit the disconnect button. If she said anything more, she'd start crying in full, and she wasn't a delicate crier: she could go from delicate sniffles to monstrously ugly sobs in a single blink. She wiped the phone clean and looked at her reflection in the bedroom mirror to make sure no sneaky tears had leaked out. _One down,_ she thought as she took a steadying breath and headed back downstairs. When she reached the living room, she put on a smile she hoped looked natural. "Well, I didn't get a _mailbox is full_ warning, so that's a good sign, right?" She held up the phone and glanced around. "Who's next?"

If Becky could put on a brave face, so could she.


	2. Bayley

It always felt weird to be using someone else's phone, even if it was a landline. When it was a cell phone, that added another layer of discomfort for Bayley. Pictures, phone numbers, texts, memos: people kept such vital, personal information on their phones and while Bayley wasn't one to pry, she always worried about seeing something she wasn't supposed to. Given that this was Dean's secret, secondary phone, it would either have the bare minimum and thus be safe, or it could be riddled with things she'd rather not know about someone she considered a good friend.

_Two minutes have gone by,_ she thought, glancing at the time in the top right-hand corner of the screen, _and you haven't even opened the phone app yet._ But what could she say? She had known Becky for years, both in WWE and then on the road. They were like sisters, or at least Bayley had thought they were. Would you really just up and leave your sister with no warning, though? Bayley didn't think she could do it, but she was starting to wonder if that was a good thing or a bad one. Back when the Four Horsewomen were all still in training, all still figuring out who they were, Dusty had said they all had different strengths. Making sacrifices wasn't really one of hers.

After another two minutes had passed, Bayley huffed out a few breaths and squared her shoulders. She could do this. It was only leaving a message. All she had to do was be genuine—and positive, and keep it under two minutes. No problem. "Hey, Becks," she began, wincing at the false note of brightness in her voice. "It's Bayley." She shook her head at herself and plowed on. "I really don't know what to say, if I want to be completely honest. I know I should be happy that . . . well, that you're alive, for starters, and that you're safe and you're okay. And I am. I really, really am. I just don't get why you can't be alive and safe and okay _with us_ , and maybe that makes me naïve or childish or whatever, but that's how I feel. I miss you. I've missed you every day since you left." Sniffling, Bayley swore under her breath. "Sorry. I know I should be keeping this positive. I don't want to make you feel bad. I can't imagine what it was like to make that decision, to leave everything—all of us. . . ."

Bayley set the phone on her lap and pressed both hands to her mouth, muffling a scream that threatened to dissolve into a sob. "If . . . if you can't be here, then I hope everything's okay there. I bet Naomi's stoked that you're back. And who knows? Maybe one day we'll be back there or . . . or I don't know. I just know this is temporary. I have to believe that because you're like a sister and I love you and working out isn't the same without you and I miss your playlists and your laugh—you know which one—and . . . and everything. I miss everything. I miss you and I miss our wacky little group, because it's not the same anymore, and . . . fuck it, I'm going to cry. Okay. Love you. Bye."

It wasn't deep and meaningful and poignant; Bayley knew it wouldn't pull at Becky's heartstrings and lure her home. But maybe honesty would prevail over packaging. _She must know we're upset,_ Bayley reasoned, taking a minute or two to compose herself. Eventually the gravity of everyone else's melancholy pulled her like an anchor back to the living room, and she handed the phone to Sasha with a sigh. "I didn't know what to say." Judging from the looks on the others' faces, no one did.


	3. Sasha

"Bitch." Sasha was looking at her shadowed reflection in the phone's screen, but the barb could have been aimed at almost anyone in the house. Charlotte most of all, in her opinion. If Charlotte had just made amends with her family on her own, Becky wouldn't have felt like she needed to fix things. But Sasha knew she deserved the slight too. How many times had she gone off with Bayley—or sometimes Charlotte—and left Becky behind? They had always asked, but it wasn't like they pushed too hard when Becky would decline; they would just savour the one-on-one time and, silently, be grateful that they didn't have to deal with Becky's increasingly pensive mood up close. 

" _Bitch,_ " Sasha repeated with a snarl. That one was definitely for herself. She was mad at so many people, herself included, but when she tried to aim that ire at Becky, she found herself faltering. Sasha knew what it was like to sacrifice, to give up something to make life easier or better for someone she cared about. She'd basically been a child when she had quit school to help raise her brother, always with her dreams of wrestling on the horizon. If any of them could understand why Becky had made such a hard choice, it should have been her.

Should have been. Sasha wasn't quite there yet. When angry tears started to well up, she wiped at her eyes and turned the phone back on so she wouldn't have to look at herself. Two minutes. Positive message. She could do that. She hoped she could, anyway.

The first app she went to was the messaging one. If she could see the words, correct and erase as needed, Sasha thought it would help her calm down. But the blinking cursor just mocked her with each second that passed. "Fuck it," she muttered, backing out of that app and going to the phone one instead. _We're both impulsive,_ she thought. _Becky would rather have a real message than a carefully worded one._

As if she were getting ready for a match, Sasha stretched out her legs and walked around the bedroom before hitting the call button. "I'm so mad right now," she began right after the beep. "And it would be so much easier if I were mad at you, because you're not here. But I'm mad at all of us. I'm mad at Charlotte for not doing her own dirty work. I'm mad at Roman for making you feel like you couldn't talk to us about your idea. I'm mad at Seth because he's the cause of this whole mess and I'm mad at Dean because he . . . knew you were okay and he didn't say a word."

Shaking, Sasha sank to her knees. "Mostly I'm mad at myself. I should have seen the signs in you. You know what I've done, what I gave up as a kid. If I'd bothered to look, I would have seen it in your face or heard it in your voice, but I didn't. I didn't and I'm so sorry. I've been on your side of this line, and I know how hard it can be. I know you've probably had so many moments where you feel alone, no matter how many people are there. If you want—call me. No pressure, no judgement; I won't tell the others, I promise." Sasha peeked out of the window to the garage. She needed to be on her bike; she needed the movement and the noise and the chaos—Becky in sensation form. "So thank you. Thank you for being so brave—and a little bit stupid. Thank you for loving us so much. I hope you get your dream at the end like I got mine."

Then she ended the call and stormed downstairs, barely seeing Roman as she handed the phone to him instead of Charlotte. Sasha held her breath until she was on her bike and on the road, where the wind and the noise whisked away her tears and her screams.


	4. Roman

It might have looked like politeness, offering the phone to everyone else first, but Roman saw it for what it truly was: delaying the inevitable. He suspected that Becky's coldness was calculated, a way to keep some semblance of control in a place where she was powerless, at Hunter's whim. At least he hoped so. If she really felt that way, if she truly believed all those things, he was an even worse friend than he imagined.

He paced the hallway for a few minutes, carefully tossing the phone from hand to hand as he thought about what to say. If he broke the phone, it might get him out of leaving a message, but he would take away their one potential connection to Becky from everyone else. "Such a fucking hypocrite," he muttered to himself. There he was, telling everyone else to be positive and keep it quick while he was a bumbling mess. Everything he needed to say to her, everything he needed her to hear, was tinged with sadness and regret, but if he didn't say it now and never got another chance, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. _I doubt Bayley and Sasha were all sunshine and rainbows,_ he told himself, finally ducking into his bedroom and shutting the door. 

Roman eyed his bed, but he ended up sitting on the floor instead, just below the window. He had left it open just a crack, and the gentle breeze made the curtain brush against the top of his head. The crackling roar of Sasha's bike had already faded, and part of him wanted to do the same, just take off on his motorcycle and clear his head. But if he kept delaying it, he'd lose his nerve and if Becky got a message from everyone but him, it would only make her words ring true.

"Hey, Becks," he said once he heard the beep. "I'm sorry. If I don't get to anything else, I need to say that. If I'd listened more and . . . not been so controlling, things would be so different. You'd still be here and. . . ." No, he couldn't continue on like that. But if he couldn't talk about his mistakes and he couldn't be over-the-top positive, it didn't leave much ground to tread.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "If things change and you can come back to us, I'll do better, I swear. I'll be better. Or . . . or if you can't forgive me, at least don't take it out on the others. That's not your style, I know, but I just feel bad for messing everything up. While the rest of us were just scrambling from day to day, you were actually trying to look at the bigger picture and make things happen. You're way smarter than you ever give yourself credit for, you know. So much smarter. And brave. And strong. I'm glad my daughter looks up to someone like you."

Roman felt silent for so long he was surprised the messaging service didn't cut him off. "You've got this. There's nothing Hunter or the McMahons can throw at you that you can't handle. I truly believe that, I do. I believe in you. I'm sorry I never said that more or showed that enough. I hope I have the chance to someday." Then he switched to Samoan, knowing she wouldn't be able to understand; maybe she would ask his cousins to translate for her. It was part apology and part blessing, and by the time he switched back to English, he was blinking back tears. "You're doing great. I'm glad you're getting the chance to shine. You deserve every chance you've gotten and then some, and I hope you run with them all. Get that gold, Irish. Love you."

He lingered in his room for a few minutes, in the dark and the quiet, and by the time he returned to the living room, the collective mood had changed, anger slowly giving way to introspection. Until Becky was back with them, though, they would need to keep changing; they had a long way to go, and the messages—and the hard truths they were facing—were just the beginning.


	5. Charlotte

Now that she was done crying—at least for the moment—Charlotte wasn't sure if the flood of tears had left her feeling drained or refreshed. In some ways, she felt as scrubbed bare as her face, raw and honest and unfiltered. There was a power in that, but she found herself missing the façade of make-up just a little bit, the enhanced confidence a swipe of colour or contouring could bring her. But Becky had seen her at her best and her worst, in her highs and her lows, and Charlotte considered her a sister, her best friend, and a soulmate all in one. 

That made it both easier and harder. Charlotte knew she wouldn't have to choose every word perfectly: Becky would be able to fill in her pauses, interpret her hesitations, translate her wordless snarls. Before leaving WWE together, they had spent countless nights on the road together, either deep in chatter or companionable silence, developing a subtle language all their own. Curling up on her bed, cradling the phone close to her face, Charlotte finally pressed the call button and counted her breaths until the fateful beep. "Hey, babe. I just stopped crying, so that's why I sound stuffed up. I'm trying not to cry again, but no guarantees. At least all my mascara is off this time, so I won't look like I'm trying to copy Asuka."

Charlotte brought her knees up closer to her chest, thinking of all the times she and Becky had shared a room to save some money. "I love you. I miss you. But you know all that, or at least I hope you do. I'm also really proud of you, but I hope you know that too. And I'm so, so grateful. I feel so stupid now. I never once thought about how you got the information about my dad. I wish I could say I didn't see that you were about to leave, but . . . on some level, I think I did. I knew you were being quieter, spending more time by yourself or on your phone, and I should have said something, but I never did. I always figured I'd do it another day, you know? Better time, better place. But like I said, _stupid_."

Shutting her eyes, Charlotte rolled onto her back. "But Roman told us to keep this positive, and he's right. After all you gave up for us, the last thing you need is to hear our whining. We've all been doing pretty well. Now that WWE isn't cockblocking us, we're getting better bookings. Roman's getting to spend more time with his kids, which is good. Renee hasn't killed Dean yet, obviously, so the engagement is still on." She gave a rough chuckle as she wiggled her toes. "Bayley's really coming into her own. I wish you could see it. I'm not saying Sasha was holding her back before, but . . . yeah. I'm glad to see her strength coming out. Sasha and I . . . haven't been getting along great, so we'll have to work on that. And Seth is fitting in—more than he realizes, I think. Roman and Dean basically consider him the third member of The Shield, even if they don't have the balls to tell him that to his face."

Her breath caught and she pressed a fist to her mouth to stop herself from crying. She smiled as she remembered waking up and seeing Becky sleep that way sometimes, or with both hands curled up under her chin. "And my dad's . . . hanging in there. There were a couple of really close calls, but he's pulled through. How's yours? I hope he's doing better. I saw that WWE is doing a European tour soon. I hope you're able to see him."

She rambled a bit longer, likely past Roman's decreed two-minute maximum, and made sure that _I love you_ was the last thing she said. Then she went back downstairs to gave the phone to Dean and she even sat through a period of the hockey game before she retreated to her room to cry. Sleep wouldn't be coming any time soon, but she could at least get her tears out of the way.


	6. Chapter 6

When Seth took the phone from Dean, his first thought was of the weights attached to corpses to make them sink to the bottom of rivers. He had started out on a bad note with most of Becky's friends and didn't feel like he had made much progress since. Dean might have been the one who kept the secret, but Seth still felt the blame every time they looked at him. "I'll go upstairs when the game is done," he said when Dean looked at him expectantly. Since everyone else had taken their turn, there was no rush; if Becky's inbox was full, it was going to reject his message whether he sent it right away or in a few hours.

While Seth barely moved, only occasionally reaching for his beer or to adjust the volume on the television, the others blurred around him. When Sasha returned and headed to her room, both Bayley and Charlotte went upstairs soon after. A brief burst of yelling ensued, including a thump that made Roman cringe and mutter something about damage deposits, but after the initial chaos, the din ebbed to the rumble of distant conversation. Then Roman excused himself to go call his daughter, and Dean and Renee drifted away as soon as it was obvious who was going to win the game. Seth stayed downstairs a little longer, enjoying the rare stretch of solitude, before finally grabbing the phone and standing up. For a wild moment, he looked at the front door, considering a late-night ride. Hunter was a creature of habit, so Seth knew which hotel he had probably chosen. If Becky was there. . . . _No_. He forced himself up the stairs to his room; trying to ride to Becky's rescue at this point wouldn't have helped any of them.

A giggle, some sobbing, the bass of Roman's voice in father mode: the sounds of the others were muffled enough that Seth felt strangely alone. He left the light off as he shut his door and stretched out on the bed, setting Dean's phone beside him. The darkness should have been an ideal backdrop for figuring out what he wanted to say, but his thoughts were too scattered. What could he tell her? What right did he have to tell her anything? They'd had sex—really amazing sex, sure—and had some deep conversations, but what was that compared to the years of friendship she had with the others?

_I miss you,_ he thought, staring at the ceiling. _Maybe I have no right to, but I miss you. I miss having the chance to find out what we could be—_

He thought the trilling sound was the smoke detector at first, and Seth sat up straight, ready to run. Then he looked down beside him and saw that the phone's screen had lit up. According to Dean, he had only used the phone for two people: Renee—who was with him right now and thus had no reason to be calling—and then Becky.

Glancing at the number, Seth quickly jabbed the answer button before the ringing could alert the others. Getting them to leave messages had been hard enough; if they knew they had the option of _talking_ to Becky, Seth would never get a chance with the phone. "Dean . . . stop." Before Seth could correct her, she plunged on, as if she thought she didn't have enough air to say everything she needed to. "You guys have to stop. Please. I can't . . . I can't handle those messages right now. I'm sorry, but I can't. . . ."

"This isn't Dean." Seth half-expected her to hang up on him then, or at least yell at him, but they fumbled their way through a shaky conversation, ending with a promise from Becky to call the others in a couple days. They would still hate that he had lucked out and talked to her first, but they'd just have to deal with it. If Becky was under a three-year contract, it might be a long time before they would all be reunited, but if his leaving WWE and her returning to it proved anything, it was that impossible things happened far more often than people realized. _Maybe,_ Seth thought, rereading over the brief text message she had sent her friends after their call had ended, _something impossible will happen again._ When he thought of it that way, Wednesday didn't seem very far away at all.


End file.
